


Salt in the Wound

by hollyhock13



Series: Whumptober 2019 [14]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics), Detective Comics (Comics), Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Alfred Pennyworth is the voice of reason, Angst, Canon Compliant, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt Tim Drake, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Self-Harm, Tim Drake Deserves Better, Tim Drake Needs a Break, Tim Drake Needs a Hug, Whumptober 2019, back at it again with that, or tries to be, prompt: scars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-19
Updated: 2019-10-19
Packaged: 2020-12-23 21:22:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21088034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hollyhock13/pseuds/hollyhock13
Summary: If you keep picking at a scab it will never heal





	Salt in the Wound

**Author's Note:**

> THIS FIC CONTAINS SEMI-GRAPHIC REFERENCES TO SELF HARM. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. PLEASE DO NOT TRIGGER YOURSELF WITH MY FIC, THANK YOU.
> 
> This is...longer than most of my other Whumptober fics. It needed it I guess.
> 
> Thanks to [@Ursapharoh15](%E2%80%9C) for reading this fic like twelve times to help me refine it, you’re a champ.

Whumptober 2019—Day 15: Scars

They were in the locker room when Dick first noticed.

“Woah, Tim, you’ve got a lot of new scars.” He pressed closer to his little brother and lifted his shirt before he could protest. “This one looks really bad,” he added, pointing out a particular scar on his abdomen. 

Tim had shoved him away. “Don’t do that! You don’t get to just touch me because you think you can.” He pulled his shirt back down and wrapped his arms around himself. It was a defensive move, one that Dick knew intimately.

“Hey, you’re okay. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. But how did you get those scars?” Dick asked. 

“It’s none of your business. It doesn’t matter.”

And that would have been the end of it, except that Dick Grayson is a very nosy brother.

The next chance he has to ask about the scars is when he drags Tim back to the manor after an injury on patrol. 

Tim stripped his suit down just enough for Alfred to examine and treat the wound. He was being wary, but Dick could something that worried him. It’s that nasty scar again, and it was definitely near vital organs.

“Alfie, look at that scar. Do you think that could bother him when he’s doing night stuff?”

Alfred frowned and started to move the suit down to get a better look.

Tim tensed at the intrusion and tugged the suit back up. “What are you doing?!”

“He needs to see if your injury gets worse over there, Timbo. Why are you being so cagey?”

“Master Timothy, I do not mean to be rude, but if your health is at risk here it must be addressed.” The butler and boy locked gazes for an intense few seconds before Tim relented.

“Right. Okay, yeah.” He moved deliberately as he stripped his suit to the waist. He hesitated before pulling the suit down around his hips.

Dick didn’t notice. He was far too distracted by the patchwork of scars marring his little brother’s body, most of them recent and unfamiliar.

“Tim, what happened to you?” He asked softly. 

“I got stabbed by a poisoned sword.”

Both adults stared at him for a moment. “By whom?” Alfred asked primly. Dick could almost see him calculating trajectories and kill counts. 

“Some guy on the Council of Spiders. They’re assassins who kill assassins. It’s kind of a long story.”

“Then you better tell it to me sometime, yeah?” Dick glanced at Alfred worriedly. The butler gave him a stony look in return. 

“This could have affected your spleen. Who treated your wound?” Alfred asked the boy on his gurney. 

“Uh, that’s also a long story...”

“I need the records of your treatment if they are available, Master Timothy. It is important that our records are up to date.”

“...Ra’s.”

The name was quiet, almost imperceptible. “Ra’s treated your poisoned stab wound?” Dick asked icily. “And you said assassins who kill assassins...they were targeting the League of Shadows? And you got caught in the crossfire somehow.”

“Not somehow, Dick, it was—we had a deal!” Tim regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth and it showed in his face.

“You made a deal with  _Ra’s_?! ”

“Master Richard,” Alfred said sharply, “I do not believe now is the time for judgment.”

Dick deflated, but he was still on the warpath. He spotted another scar on Tim’s hip, a long thin white thing, smooth and otherwise unmarred. “Did he do that to you too?”

Tim tensed again, but did not respond.

His reticence made Dick’s anger and fear spike out of control. “What? Did he? Or was it some other criminal from your time abroad?”

Tim shook his head. 

Dick scoffed. “Well it’s  _clearly_ not from a fall or an accident! The line is steady and straight, it was inflicted intentionally, Tim!”

Tim flinched. The air in the cave held a static electricity that raised Dick’s hair on end.

Alfred broke the silence. “Master Richard.”

“What?! If he didn’t get them from a criminal, then how did the scars get there? They’re not accidental, that’s obvious!”

“I did it.”

Dick whirled around to face Tim. “What?” He snapped.

“I made the cuts. I watched the blood flow, felt the pain. I. Did. It.”

Alfred interrupted again. “This is not the time nor place—“

“For what, Alfred? To discuss the fact that Tim has been  _cutting himself_ ?”

Tim flinched.

“Are you going to deny it? Was it not enough to be hurt by criminals nightly? Or are you just that self destructive?!”

Tim said nothing.

“Did you even care? You could have seriously hurt yourself! You could have bled out  alone  and died!”

“Well I wouldn’t have been alone if you’d bothered to help me!” Tim yelled. The cave rang in the sudden silence.

He took a few shaky breaths. “If you’d lived up to your fancy speech maybe I wouldn’t have felt so  _low_ , so  _alone_ , so  _destroyed_ that the only thing that made me feel anything all was the pain! Don’t you talk to me about  _caring_. ”

Tim pulled his suit up his body and started reattaching the accessory components to his suit. “Where was your caring when Damian was trying to kill me? When Jason stabbed me with a batarang? When you were trying to commit me for believing Bruce was alive?”

He struggled for a moment with a fastener and winced as the harness finally fell into place over his wound. Alfred moved forward to help him, but Tim held up a hand to stop him.

“I can’t play this game anymore, Dick. I can’t take it when you pretend to care about me and then show your true colors elsewhere. Don’t follow me. Goodbye, Alfred.”

He walked to the motorcycle bay with a pronounced limp. His bike roared out of the cave a moment later.


End file.
